This past election was the first in Arizona
to be conducted under the Clean Elections Act. A ballot initiative
passed in 1998, the Act provides public funding for candidates.
Attorney Clint Bolick contends the new guidelines "proved
to be anything but clean or divested of special interest pressures."

Bolick wrote in the Weekly Standard that
the Clean Elections Act "skews the political playing field
sharply in favor of subsidized candidates." Beneficiaries
must only raise a token amount to qualify. Taxpayers are induced
to transfer $5 of their tax payment to the Clean Elections fund
to get a $5 tax rebate ("it bribes taxpayers to check the
box, and each check-off costs the state $10"). Additional
funds were raised through a $100 tax on for-profit lobbyists and
a ten percent surcharge on civil and criminal fines. Publicly
funded candidates are given set amounts, but are matched dollar-for-dollar
if a challenger who is not receiving public funds raises more
than that amount.

In the 2002 Arizona gubernatorial race,
Bolick said the Clean Elections Act was integral in Democrat Janet
Napolitano's victory in a state with a three-to-two Republican
advantage in voter registration. Republican Matt Salmon refused
to accept public funding. Napolitano did, and was aided by labor
unions in raising the 4,000 $5 donation necessary to qualify.
Salmon faced two primary opponents who drained his campaign coffers
and gave Napolitano time to launch negative attacks against him.
Napolitano received an additional $200,000 to match an independent
expenditure for Salmon by the state Republican Party, but a $700,000
negative campaign against Salmon by state Democrats did not count
against Napolitano. In the end, Napolitano outspent Salmon by
$1 million - and won by 11,819 votes.

Clean Election Act rules were criticized
for their complexity, and campaigns misused their public funds.
The Institute for Justice, which Bolick serves as vice president,
challenged the lobbyist tax and fine surcharges as violations
of the First Amendment's protection from coerced political speech.
The lobbyist tax was struck down, but the surcharge was upheld
in the Arizona Supreme Court. It will be appealed to the U.S.
Supreme Court early next year. Additionally, U.S. Representative
Jeff Flake (R-AZ) says he will sponsor an initiative in 2004 to
repeal the Clean Election Act altogether.

McCain-Feingold Regulations
Already in Court

New campaign restrictions that were passed
by Congress and signed into law this past spring, and just went
into force on November 6, have already been challenged and had
their day in court. The constitutionality of the McCain-Feingold
rules - which, among other things, ban unlimited soft money donations
to political parties and place restrictions on political advertising
- were debated in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on December
4. Opponents contend that the new rules violate the First Amendment's
guarantee of unfettered political speech and that they infringe
on state election laws. The three-judge panel is expected to issue
a ruling by early next year. It is widely believed that any decision
will be immediately appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Campaign Finance
Factoids

Ohio Union Grudgingly Refunds
Dues for Religious Reasons

After the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission ruled that the National Education Association and
its Ohio affiliate discriminated against religious objectors,
the Ohio Education Association grudgingly redirected the portion
of Kathleen Klamut's union dues not spent on collective bargaining
to the American Cancer Society. Klamut objected to her dues aiding
the union's pro-abortion political agenda.

Michigan Residents Support
Paycheck Protection, Right to Work

A recent poll of Michigan residents commissioned
by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy found 73 percent support
for legislation requiring financial disclosure reports from public
employee unions. 63 percent of everyone surveyed (and 49 percent
of those from union households) supported "paycheck protection"
requiring a member's approval before dues can be spent on politics.

Hillary No Friend of Campaign
Regulation

Don't count Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY)
as a true believer in campaign finance regulation. Although she
voted for the McCain-Feingold restrictions, the Associated Press
reported that Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) identified her as
one of several Democratic colleagues searching for ways around
the bill's ban on unrestricted soft money donations to political
parties. During an argument with Feingold, Clinton reportedly
screamed, "you're not living in the real world!" Feingold
later responded: "I don't know how they think they're going
to get away with, in a closed room, trying to figure out every
way they can to keep raising soft money, and then publicly act
like they're getting rid of it. It's going to sound phony."

Political Money Monitor
is published by The National Center for Public Policy Research
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issues. Coverage of an event or article in Political Money Monitor
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Research. Copyright 2002 The National Center for Public Policy
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